BBC News Online's coverage of the environment has earned recognition as the best in the UK.

The site won the award for best general coverage of environmental issues at the 2001 British Environment and Media Awards (Bemas) on Wednesday.

It was collected by the site's environment correspondent, Alex Kirby.

The judges praised BBC News Online for its "consistent pursuit of stories and production of high quality and original journalism using a new medium, the internet".

Presented by the UK section of WWF, the global environment campaign, and Media Natura, a communications consultancy, the Bema awards are intended to "recognise the critical role the media play".

Excellence

They said its coverage "bears that extra, almost imperceptible mark of excellence".

Other finalists in the category were The Field for Green and Pleasant Land?; the freelance journalist Ros Coward for a series of articles; and a number of reports from the Today programme on BBC Radio 4.

The Today programme also won the Best Website award, which BBC News Online had not entered.

The Andrew Lees memorial award, given in memory of a former campaigns director of Friends of the Earth, went to Nancy Tait.

Nancy, an 81-year-old grandmother, has fought for years to achieve a Europe-wide ban on the use of asbestos.

A Bema for special awareness was given, ironically and in his absence, to Lee Raymond, chairman and chief executive officer of the oil giant Exxon.

The judges said he deserved recognition for showing the best way not to save the planet by his criticism of the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty on tackling climate change.